


Doctor

by LadyProto



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, animal testing, not graphic depictions of torture, the slow slippage of doctor grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:30:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyProto/pseuds/LadyProto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who has taken the Hippocratic oath, I feel dirty for putting in “first do no harm”. That’s not actually in the Hippocratic oath at all. But considering its canon that its in the RvB Hippocratic oath, I’m hoping no one will have my head for this. 
> 
> Also I know that Mensa isn’t an institution, technically. But hey, its futuristic.
> 
> And yes, I know that I’m using very liberal interpretations of the original Greek text. Please don’t kill me.

_First do no harm._

I lost the first part of my humanity in college, when I became a number and a paycheck to an institution that promised to nurture my mind. The Institution of Mensa sent me confirmation of my gifts in the form of a numerical assignment. I was told I had an IQ of 240, and told to go save the world. I was the smart one. I was the gentle one. I was going to save the universe with my medical bag and little glowing scanner. I didn’t have many friends, and I compartmentalized it as a self sacrifice. I was more than willing to the proverbial messiah. 

With high IQ comes the ability to twist any scenario into positivity, and the questionable talent of rationalizing any crime against humanity. Harm is different than pain. Harm comes from he intention to maim. Pain was an accepted and even necessary part of treatment. Like children with vaccines: they cry but they live longer, healthier lives. So we relegated the most important oath in humanity to skewed thought processes and self-deceit. 

_Administer no poison._

The first time I realized this, I was in college, holding the small twitching body of a mouse in one hand and a half-spent syringe of strychnine in the other. Did my professors forget the part of the oath where we swore to ancient gods that we would administer no poison? 

But it was just a $5 pet shop feeder mouse. It was a life we could literally put a price on. I was causing harm, but it was for the greater good of society. After all, I couldnt fix mammalian anatomy if I didn’t have a broken creature to look at first. And I always told myself I would sacrifice a million rats to save one human. We have human brothers and sisters that would need my help, so with resigned acceptance I decided it was okay to practice on the unimportant scourge of society.

I injected the little guy, with a plea for forgiveness to the ancient gods of the oath and a prayer that they would guide the little one home. I watched him asphyxiate from neuronal damage. 

_I will not use the knife on sufferers._

The war came quickly. We went to bed that night with full stomachs and contented hearts. We woke up that morning to the sounds of gunshots and crying children. 

There was a call to arms and the only arms I had been certified to carry was my medical scanner that I had bedazzled in a moment of innocence. I had only been three months into residency, but they needed doctors as badly as they needed fresh soldiers. Here, take this dirty apron and antique equipment and save lives. If you can’t save the entire person, save the parts you can. If you can’t save any parts let them die, we have others we need to fix. Aren’t you glad you killed those mice in college? Because here are the important people. Except that one. He’s just a lieutenant and his face has already been blown off. 

Amputation became commonplace. _Please, let me keep my arm. Please let me hold my child again. How will I walk the aisle of my wedding now?_ And I ignored it, cutting through bones and tissues with saws that hadn’t reduced in barbarism since the 2000s. I could have saved their limbs given better time and equipment. But robot arms are cheaper than surgery, and the assembly line for their production kept income flowing. Give them lead to chew on. Give them alcohol. Just make them stop screaming. 

But lead causes toxicity and alcohol causes cirrhosis. So am I doing harm?

Is this harm? Is this pain? I was not Florence Nightingale, even though I tried to take her image. I took her lamp and made it the garish fluorescence of a bug zapper that deceptively offered warmth only to electrocute those that I was supposed to treat. I was the angel of internalized indifference in a white coat and young people pleaded to me like I could help them.

_I will always help man according to my ability._

I still have my certificate of genius hanging in the Capitol, like a breeder displays their dog’s pedigree lineage. I spent one evening sitting on the floor of my apartment with no friends and a bottle of fruity rum with the intention of tearing the worthless paper apart bit by bit. But a high IQ was my only distinguishing characteristic in life. I am the smart one. I am the gentle one. I will save the universe. 

So when the colorful space marines couldn’t get the information from their prisoner, I stepped in. They may be soldiers but I’m a doctor. I chose this life for fun, and I am damn good at it. I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people. But now I know that harming the scourge of the earth can benefit our brothers and sisters. That little mouse in med school taught me that.

This guy is the mouse that incinerated my brothers in medicine like literal rats once spread the plague through Europe. The opportunity calls, and I go in singing, hands tight around a bone saw that’s become my security blanket.

I am a doctor. I know everything about the human anatomy. I know the Stanford pain scale, and I know how to dangle a man over the edge of agony until he begs me to let him die. I make the man drool with mind numbing pain from gentle pinpricks to his facial nerves until the inflammation threatens to make his throat swell. There’s an incinerator in the research facility, and I’ve studied how deeply I can burn before blisters form, and at what point even the blisters themselves dry up and just scorch. I pull him apart nerve for nerve, but better than that is the psychological warfare, the dehumanization, the twisting of what was once hated into what is now loved and what was once loved into the most terrifying monstrosity. 

I return to my new and brightly colored companions. “His name is Zachary Miller.” I say, wiping blood off my visor. “He’s ex military. And he was so kind to give us coordinates to the nearest radio jammer!”

“You’re kidding...” The Aqua one says.

“No, silly, I’m Dr. Grey!”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about what to write next. I'm really wanting some smut with potential Dubcon. Any suggestions for pairings? Either comment or ask anon on my tumblr http://yourscientistfriend.tumblr.com. Preface it in a way so I know that it's a smut suggestions.


End file.
